01 November 2008

I had a nice holiday today. To match my daughter, who was Supergirl, I dressed as Clark Kent for work. That is, I dressed in suit pants, a white shirt and a tie with a Superman T-shirt showing through the unbuttoned white shirt. I also ordered the official DC Comics "Clark Kent Eyeglasses" to wear (who knew?), though I could only tolerate them with the cheap, plastic lenses popped out. Not the most original costume in the world, but people really dug it. I got lots of nice comments from folks and my picture taken a couple of times. And to all the skeptics out there: the glasses-as-disguise thing really does work. I normally don't wear them... just by putting them on, I had people I know staring right at me, not able to figure out who I was for a beat or two.

I don't what the deal is with the hospital, though. I probably saw only 4 other people in full-on costumes today... this being a place that employs thousands. I also found out from our daycare lady that the public schools don't allow the kids to wear costumes to school anymore. What's the deal, man? Why all the dressing up hate? There's one day per year where you get to walk around pretending to be someone else and you don't want to do it or aren't allowed to? Bummer.

Afterwards, for the first year ever despite living here for seven years, I passed out candy to trick-or-treaters. Only six groups stopped by -- half of them being the local daycare kids and a third being teenagers collecting cans for charity -- but I thought it was fun. Not sure on the protocol these days with regards to quantity. I just gave 'em a handful of candy and didn't worry about it.

Then, it was movie time. The final day of the final week of Halloween:

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) directed by Chuck RussellFreddy at the top of his game, both cruel and funny. I love his processed, deep voice in this one. Half the time it sounds like a growl. It fits him perfectly. I think this sequel's Freddy makeup is my favorite as well. It gets more plastic looking in later movies. To me, Freddy puppeting Phillip around by his tendons remains the most disturbing image in the entire series. I'm still trying to figure out all of the Freudian implications of the phallic Freddy-snake eating Kristen. Freddy's repeated use of the word "bitch" to refer to his female antagonists may, just may, indicate he's a bit of a misogynist. Also: Dokken rules! (7/10)

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2007) directed by Lloyd KaufmanNot quite the head explosion that Citizen Toxie was. I ordered this with two-day shipping from Amazon to be sure it got here in time to watch on Halloween. A new movie from Lloyd is a rare event indeed and I've got the trailer for this one practically memorized after watching it for two years. It's essentially Troma's version of Fast Food Nation (the book, not the shitty movie), but with song and dance numbers. I wasn't expecting those. They're pretty much contained in the first half of the movie and kinda come too close together for my liking. The lyrics, of course, are funny, with plenty of references to body parts and functions. Unfortunately, I found that the songs slowed the movie down, spacing out the scenes of extreme gore more than I would've wanted. What I liked about Toxie 4 was the nearly nonstop mayhem and insanity on the screen. Poultrygeist is a much calmer movie... at least for the first half. When the chicken zombie plague finally arrives, we start to rock-and-roll without stopping.

Speaking of extreme gore, this is definitely the gooiest Troma movie thus far (which is saying quite a bit). I can't wait to watch the documentary on the bonus disc, just to see how many times the poor PAs were forced to clean up the gallons and gallons of fake blood that got constantly sprayed everywhere. I'm pretty sure Poultrygeist beats out Dead Alive / Braindead for the most fake blood sprayed into the air. It definitely beats it for most objects ramming through anuses. Also: they put a camera in the toilet bowl... for when Joe Fleishaker uses it. Man oh man. I love you, Troma.

Halloween (1978) directed by John CarpenterThe granddaddy of slasher films. Watching it in HD this year for the first time was a treat. I'm so familiar with the movie -- specifically, the one DVD that I've been watching for a decade -- that suddenly having all of this extra detail in the picture was like someone wiped the haze from the screen. Fun stuff. (9/10)

The seventh and final Halloween Jones Soda flavor is Blood Orange, a new one for this year. But, you know, it's just orange pop. There's nothing at all different about it except that it's dyed a slightly darker shade of orange than a Faygo orange pop. Meh. Jones really dropped the ball on the glass bottle flavors this year. Bring back red licorice!

And, that's it for the Six Weeks of Halloween. Celebrating Halloween for this long is great. By the time I've finished, I'm good and done with the holiday. I feel like I've got as much out of it as I could. I'm looking forward to watching non-horror movies in the near future for the first time in a month and a half. That'll be a treat.

About Me

Chronocinethon. That's my made-up name for watching the films of a favorite director, or movie personality, in chronological order. This gives me a sense of where they came from, where they went, how much or little they grew, and whether it was worth buying their worst film (I own Intolerable Cruelty?). Guest reviews and other movie-related posts will also show up here.